by Margaret Kay
“Can you zoom in closer on what they’re doing, Garcia?” Cooper asked.
“Negative, not unless I want to alert someone to the fact that they’ve been hacked. Observing is one thing, taking control is another.”
Just then, Brielle’s phone rang. It was a local Parish number that she didn’t recognize. She glanced at Madison. “That’s odd. I don’t know this number.”
“Answer it,” Madison prompted. She leaned with her ear near the phone as Brielle hit accept call and brought the phone to her own ear.
“Hello.”
“Brielle? This is Darcy Sanders, Toby Landry’s babysitter.”
“Yes, this is Brielle.”
“I hate to bother you, but Tina is over an hour late to pick him up and she’s not answering her phone.”
“She didn’t?” Brielle asked, her eyes going to Madison and then Cooper.
“It normally wouldn’t be a problem for me to keep Toby longer, but I have to leave in a half hour. I have an appointment I can’t postpone.”
“Tell her you’ll pick Toby up before she has to leave,” Madison whispered. She turned to Cooper, who barely heard the call from where he sat. “Tina never picked her son up from the sitter.”
Immediately, Cooper transmitted this information to Garcia and whoever else was listening in at Ops. He brought the feed back up of the workers leaving the BioDynamix facility and reviewed it.
“I know where you live. I’ll be there to get Toby before you have to leave. Thanks for calling me,” Brielle said into the phone.
“I hope everything is alright with Tina.”
“I’m sure it is,” Brielle said, knowing she was lying. She disconnected the call and her eyes locked with Madison’s.
“We’ll have Burke bring you to get the child,” Cooper said. “You’ll bring him back here and we’ll find Tina.” He called Burke, who he knew was in the galley. “We need you back in the lounge.”
Cooper advanced the filmed footage of the employees leaving, frame by frame. Garcia did the same at HQ. “That wasn’t Tina Landry driving her car out of the lot. It was a man.”
“A man with dark red hair,” Garcia added. “Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?”
Burke entered the lounge and came up to see what was on the monitor that everyone in the room was clustered around. After he was brought up to speed on the developments, he and Brielle left to go get Toby from his babysitter.
It took only seconds to secure the babysitter’s spare car seat into the rental car. They were only back on the road, pointed south for five minutes when Toby fell asleep. “This can’t be good,” Burke said.
“What is it?” Brielle asked. She saw Rich’s eyes fixed on the rearview mirror. She turned in her seat and looked out the back of the car. It was a sight she was familiar with, police lights. “You’ve got to be freaking kidding me!”
“I wasn’t going over the speed limit, have done nothing illegal.”
“That’s been the story of my life for months,” Brielle complained as she watched Rich pull the car over to the side of the road.
The police cruiser pulled up behind them. She watched in the side mirror as Sheriff Henderson and Deputy Downey both got out. The Sheriff had his hand on his gun as he walked up to the driver’s side. Brielle’s eyes locked with Deputy Downey when he reached her side of the car.
Burke hit the button and lowered his window. “Is there a problem, Sheriff? I’m sure I wasn’t speeding.”
Sheriff Henderson peered into the car, as did Downey on the other side. Downey saw Burke’s sidearm. “Gun! On his right hip.”
“Let me see your hands, boy!” The Sheriff yelled at Burke as he drew his own weapon.
Burke raised his hands. “Let me show you my credentials. I’m FBI.”
“Slowly, get out of the car,” the Sheriff ordered.
Burke stuck his hands out of the window and opened the car door from the outside. He moved very slowly. Sheriff Henderson turned him to face the car, body slammed him into the back-passenger door, and took the gun from its holster at his waist.
“Badge and creds are in the wallet, back left pocket,” Burke said.
The Sheriff took the wallet from his pocket. He flipped it open and saw the badge. “What the fuck are you doing in my jurisdiction?”
“Sorry, Sheriff, that’s classified.”
“Oh hell,” Henderson swore. He nodded to Downey.
“Out of the car, Brielle,” Downey ordered.
She glanced behind her at Toby, sitting in his car seat in the middle of the backseat. “You do see the baby in the backseat? Right?”
Downey opened her car door. “Out of the car.”
Brielle released her seatbelt and came to her feet. Deputy Downey took her by the arm and turned her, so she faced the car. She faced Rich.
“Hands on the car.”
She placed them on the roof. She knew what was coming, an intimate pat down. Downey had stopped her dozens of times since she wrote that first article on BioDynamix. A fondling always followed him pulling her from the car.
“You got a gun on you? Any knives, needles, or other sharp objects?”
“You know I don’t, asshole!”
A small grin curved Downey’s lips. “Keep your hands on the car,” he ordered, and then he began the pat down. He started up at her shoulders, felt over her back and sides. Then his hands slid to the front, and he groped over her breasts, slid his hands down her abdomen and over the front of her jeans. His touch moved to her hips, around to her lower back, and then lingered for too long on her ass. One hand then slid down between her legs. He ended his inspection by groping both hands over each leg, ending with his hand wrapped around to the front of her, and reaching between her legs. As always, he gave her pussy a squeeze.
“Hope you enjoyed that,” Brielle said. “It’s the last time you’ll ever get to do it.”
“Why is that?” Henderson asked.
“Because I’m moving up north,” Brielle said. “Just down here to pack up my stuff.”
“The baby is your stuff?” Downey asked.
“No, his momma didn’t pick him up from the babysitter after work and I’m an emergency contact. I think something happened to her. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you, Sheriff?” Brielle said accusingly.
A smirk formed on Henderson’s face. His eyes shifted to Burke. “And you need an FBI Agent on a classified assignment to help pack your stuff and pick up Tina’s baby?”
“So, you know he’s Tina’s?” Burke questioned.
“I know everyone in my Parish,” the Sheriff insisted.
“Would you know where Tina Landry is?” Burke asked, not expecting a reply.
“I’m done dealing with you and your shit, Brielle,” Henderson said. He nodded to Downey. “Put her in the backseat and keep your gun on her. You want to know more about that BioDynamix facility? Let me show you.” He pulled Burke from the car and pushed him towards the driver’s door. Then he opened the back door, keeping his gun in Burke’s back. After Brielle was seated in the backseat and the door was closed, he motioned for Burke to get in. “Real easy, and I’m keeping this gun on you. My deputy is covering pain-in-the-ass-Brielle and neither of us will hesitate to shoot.”
Burke considered his options. He didn’t have many with Brielle and the baby in the line of fire. As he eased his way into the car, he turned his head and tapped his comms, stuck in his ear canal, activating the two-way mode so he would transmit. “There’s no reason to shoot anyone, Sheriff. We’re cooperating.”
“Good boy,” the Sheriff said.
Burke wanted to shoot this jackass, just for calling him ‘boy’. “You do realize I am a federal agent and you’re stepping way outside the law, Sheriff.”
“Shut the fuck up and drive,” Henderson ordered.
“You want me to drive to the BioDynamix facility?” Burke said for the benefit of whoever at the Coast Guard command center would be listening.
Henderson glanc
ed at Downey. “Follow us.” Then he locked his eyes with Burke’s, in the rearview mirror. “My gun is on Brielle. I’ve shot others for being less of a pain in my ass than she’s been. Don’t try anything. Do exactly what I tell you or I’ll off her, then my gun goes on the baby.”
“No need for any of that Sheriff. So, BioDynamix, is it?”
“Yes.”
At the Coast Guard facility, Sherman was woken by the door bursting open and the overhead lights switching on. He opened his eyes and sat straight up in bed. Cooper didn’t even need to speak. The look on his face told Sherman something was very wrong.
“The Sheriff has Burke and Brielle. He’s taking them to BioDynamix. Full tactical gear, ARs, flash-bangs, we go in with everything.”
Sherman jumped out of bed. “How the fuck did that happen?”
“Don’t know. Burke activated his comms after they’d already been stopped, and things had transpired. The first words we heard was Burke telling the Sheriff there was no reason to shoot anyone.”
“What the hell were they doing outside of this facility?”
“Tina Landry didn’t pick her son up from daycare. Brielle is the emergency contact,” Cooper reported.
Sherman immediately began dressing in his black fatigues. “You should have woken me to go out with her.” He guessed it was Burke’s inexperience that caused him to not activate his comms sooner. Son-of-a-bitch! “Did HQ come through with the building schematics on that facility yet?”
“Not yet, but Garcia is now hacking into the architect’s network, hoping they’re on file there, since they aren’t in the Parish’s building and inspection department files where they should be. We hope to have something before we go in.”
Then Cooper left the open doorway, and he repeated his waking and alert in Lambchop and Mother’s room, followed by Doc’s. Within the door to Sloan’s room, he saw he was changing into his fatigues and gearing up.
Madison appeared in the hallway. “All monitoring has transferred to Ops at HQ and they are watching Burke’s tracker. I’ve notified the Coast Guard we’ll need a chopper. They will have a pilot on standby. I have an aerial map of the BioDynamix facility and the vicinity up for our briefing. Shepherd and HQ is analyzing it as well and will be on while we plan our mission.”
Cooper nodded. “Good, thanks for handling all that.” Then he joined Madison in their room. The two of them also dressed in their tactical gear.
When both the vehicles arrived at the guarded gate to BioDynamix, the Sheriff rolled his window down to talk with the gate guard, who waved them through after a brief discussion. The Sheriff then ordered Burke to pull up to the big garage door at the shipping and receiving dock. The second door held no dock, just an entrance into the garage area.
The massive garage door opened, and Burke drove in, followed by Downey in the Sheriff’s car, which had remained behind them. Burke hoped like hell that the satellite feed was being monitored at HQ and this entrance into the building was seen. In the very least, with his broadcast over his comms, his tracker should be watched, so HQ would know where they were.
Burke had a spare weapon in his boot, his little snub-nose .38. The Sheriff had not thoroughly searched him, not like Downey had searched Brielle, which bordered on criminal, the way he groped her. When this was over, he personally would punch the Deputy for his treatment of her. He wouldn’t tell Sherman about it, as he believed Sherman would probably kill the man.
Deputy Downey came up to Brielle’s door, weapon drawn, and ordered her to take the toddler out of his car seat and exit the vehicle. He was asleep and didn’t wake when Brielle picked him up. She cradled him over her shoulder. He was dead weight in her arms, but she was glad he was asleep.
“You stay still, boy, till I tell you to get out,” the Sheriff said. He opened his door and got out; weapon trained on Burke. “Okay, now nice and easy.”
Burke got out of the car, his eyes scanning his surroundings. He was careful to keep the ear with his comms in it angled away from the two men. They were alone in the garage. If they remained alone and he could somehow get the drop on the Sheriff and the Deputy, he and Brielle could make a break for it. The gate hadn’t looked that strong. They could ram it. The one thing he did not want to happen was for them to be brought deeper within the facility.
Just then, the man both Brielle and Burke recognized from his photo as Mike Spencer, though they knew that to be a stolen identity, exploded through the doorway into the room. Three armed Chinese men were behind him.
“Why the hell did you bring them here?” Spencer demanded.
“We deal with them here and now and end this,” Sheriff Henderson said. He handed Burke’s badge and creds to Spencer. “We have ourselves another fed. First Brian Sherman and his girlfriend, now this asshole.”
Spencer’s eyes scanned Burke’s identification and then him. Then his eyes went back to Henderson. “A fed? You propose we kill a fucking fed? The Landry woman and this so-called reporter,” he said, pointing at Brielle, “is one thing. We can make their deaths look like an accident, drunk driving right into the bayou, but a fed? How the fuck do you suggest we cover that up?”
“The gators have to eat, don’t they? And the poor FBI Agent wandering around in the bayou who didn’t know the dangers. What a shame!” The Sheriff said.
“At the same time the ladies have their little accident? That’s a hell of a coincidence to sell,” Spencer said.
“I’m the Sheriff. I can sell anything.”
Brielle clutched Toby more tightly to her chest. “No one will ever believe it, any of it. Do you think he’s down here without his partner? And that his partner doesn’t know that the two of us went to get Toby?”
“QBZ-95-1 assault rifles in the hands of three Chinese men. I find that fucking interesting,” Burke said for the benefit of the team listening in. “Once it’s noticed I’m missing, you’re going to be swarmed by federal authorities. It’s over. If I were you, I’d pack up and hightail it to a country with no extradition to the U.S.”
“Shut the fuck up!” The Sheriff leaned into Burke’s face as he spoke.
“Did you search them?” Spencer asked, ignoring both Brielle and Burke.
The Sheriff nodded. “Took this off the fed.” He handed Spencer Burke’s .9 mm.
“Where are their phones?”
“Brielle’s is in her back pocket, right side,” Downey said.
“His is in the cup holder in the car,” the Sheriff added.
“They’re on? You left their phones on to ping off the closest tower near here?” Spencer demanded.
He crossed to the car and pulled Burke’s phone from inside. Downey took Brielle’s from her pocket and handed it to Spencer too.
Spencer held them both up. “Does it strike anyone else as odd that they have identical phones?” His head snapped to Brielle. “I know you had an iPhone and I know the damn thing is still pinging off towers near Chicago.” He turned both their phones off and slid them into his pants pockets.
Brielle didn’t answer. She stared at him, fear surging through her. Brian had been right. Her phone was being tracked. She wondered how long they’d been watching her. Did they know about the camera she had on the building? And her late-night visit to break into this facility?
“The west coast batch is ready,” Spencer said to the Sheriff. He pointed to two large suitcases that were parked near the door Spencer had entered through.
Downey went to them and rolled them over to the Sheriff’s car. He popped the trunk open and placed the two suitcases into it.
“We’re all going to walk to a special interrogation room I have set up, that you’re not going to like. You have the next few minutes to think about how cooperative you’re going to be when we get there. You’re going to die today, but how much pain you feel before and during it, is up to you. I can make it easy on you, or I can make it crueler than your worst nightmare. The choice is yours.”
Brielle’s grasp tightened on Toby. She gaze
d at his head full of black curls. “Where’s Tina?”
“She’s there. She hasn’t been very cooperative, either that or she really doesn’t know much besides a couple of federal agents asked her to place the flash drive into one of our computers.” He paused and shook his head. “It doesn’t matter much.” He pointed to the door he’d come through. “Now move.”
Brielle glanced back at Rich. He nodded. She followed one of the Chinese men, armed with an assault rifle.
“We’re leaving now. Notify me when it’s done,” Sheriff Henderson said.
“Fucking coward,” Spencer spat. “I’ll notify you all right.” Then his gaze landed on Burke. “You too, move.” When Burke passed Spencer, he was stopped by him. “What the fuck?” Spencer said. He pulled the earbud out of Burke’s ear, examined it, dropped it, and stomped on it.